Feizi Xiao (Concubine’s Smile)
Black Tea 2025
Named for China’s most famous variety of lychee fruit, Feizi Xiao is a Wuyishan black tea crafted from the union of a Taiwanese cultivar and an innovative rolling process, offering an innate lychee-like fragrance and sweetness.
A close cousin to aromatic and mellow-bodied black teas like Zui Qun Fang (Drunken Peach) or Laoshu Dianhong (Old Tree Yunnan).
Original price was: $26.00.$20.80Current price is: $20.80.
- Tea Origin
- Wuyishan City, Fujian Province, China
- Tea Bush
- Jinxuan
- Tea Maker
- Zhou Yousheng and Huang Shiying
- Harvest Time
- April 10th, 2025
- Plucking Standard
- One bud, two leaves
Like the red blush of ripe lychee, the ruby infusion of Feizi Xiao black tea offers a lush aroma that’s surprisingly evocative of the fruit.
There are no added flavorings here, just the application of the tea maker’s innovative rolling and withering techniques. These methods are similar to those used to develop the overt fruit notes in Zui Qun Fang (Drunken Peach).
Although grown in Wuyishan, this tea comes from tea bushes of the Taiwanese-developed Jinxuan cultivar. When made into Taiwanese wulong, Jinxuan is best known for its naturally sweet and creamy flavor profile. In Mr. Zhou and Ms. Huang’s production of Fei Zi Xiao, Jinxuan’s creamy qualities are less overt but still present, bolstering the richness of its tropical fruit notes.
Why is this tea called “Concubine’s Smile?”
Fitting to its lychee-like qualities, this tea shares its name with the most popular variety of lychee in China.
The name comes from a poetic tribute to Yang Yuhuan, one of the “four famous beauties” of Chinese antiquity and beloved concubine to Tang Emperor Xuanzong. The emperor, as the legend goes, used all the power of the empire to deliver Yang Yuhuan fresh lychees just to evoke her rare smile.
As recounted in Du Mu’s poem “Passing Huaqing Palace” 《过华清宫》 :
A rider gallops through the red dust, the concubine smiles, no one knows it’s the lychees arriving.
